


This World of Mine

by Amelinda



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, M/M, Tomarry Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 17:49:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13172073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelinda/pseuds/Amelinda
Summary: For the sake of his village, Harry Potter agrees to an arranged marriage.





	This World of Mine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sang_argente](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sang_argente/gifts).



Harry stood on the weir with downturned eyes. His hands, tight as knots, were kept warm from the chill by the overlong cuffs of his sleeves. The gown was too long, too dark. Ceremonial rubbish he didn’t want to bother with. But he made his choice, and he was glad to have made it. Far out in the distance, just before the ridgeline, the village danced a song of glee. Bright, glittering lights of red and gold streamed from extended wands as the Scots blew horned notes into the late autumn winds. Hogsmeade would be safe now. No more hiding, no more terror, no more mothers waking to find their children were gone for good; all was to be well for the first time in sixty-three years. 

All because of him.

He unsheathed one fist from the silken gown and uncurled each finger, one by one. In the center of his palm was a hewn rune, a symbol of the lost cause. His cheek ran with a tear as he kissed the smooth wooden surface and threw it into the water beneath. Those days were gone and they’d never come back. 

“Alright there?”

Harry jumped and turned to the voice, a figure whose Apparition was softer than he knew to be possible. His was a handsome, but unfamiliar, face, and it quirked with a smirk which seemed too friendly for a stranger. 

“Who are you?” Harry grumbled, wiping at his cheek.

The stranger smiled, gestured toward the celebration. “A southerner, of course.”

“That much I reckoned,” Harry said, relaxing his shoulders and leaning over the balustrade. His rune floated aimlessly, occasionally hitting the concrete barrier. “If you were from Hogsmeade, I’d recognize you.”

He laughed at that, his tone gentle and baritone. “Most people from my village don’t even know me. I’m what you call...ah, a  _ hermit _ of sorts.” He stretched out his long, pale arms, draping his shoulders in slinky wool. Spidery fingers clenched the balustrade, turning white at the knuckles. “But I guess from now on, I’ll be living here. I hope, perhaps foolishly, that my people will be welcome. We don’t wish to inspire more fear.”

The man’s people were not feared in Hogsmeade— _ hated  _ was perhaps a closer description, but even then, this wasn’t quite right; if anyone had reason to hate the southern travellers, it was Harry, and he didn’t. It was an old conflict which had nothing to do with him. The generation before Harry, now,  _ they _ despised the Lord of the south, the serpentine wizard thought to be immortal. His beloved parents were lost to that resentment when he was but a babe, back when the Lord was darker, crueler, bent on domination. But the Lord receded a decade ago, into the woods of old magical lands. Still, Harry’s people labored on, seeking the Lord’s followers, flaying those highest in rank.

“It’s not fair, is it?” asked the stranger.

Harry raised a brow, frowning. “What’s not fair?”

“That you should be the one to marry a foreigner. The son of your parents’ murderer, no less.”

“Er, I was too young to know them, really,” Harry said, turning his back to the celebration. “But they knew the risks of challenging your Lord. They wanted peace for my people. I’m making sure their deaths weren’t in vain.”

A soft look came about the stranger’s eyes, which Harry then realized were a warm dark brown. The color paired well with his loose, sooty curls,  adding austerity to the kind expression. He smiled and said, “You don’t know have to go through with it, you know. Not if you don’t want to.”

Harry crossed his arms over his chest and eyed the man with a questioning gaze. “Who are you to say such a thing?”

He slightly shrugged. “It is your life, is it not?” 

“My life is nothing without safety for those I love,” Harry told him decisively, scowling as the man rolled his eyes. “I trust you can’t relate?”

“I’ve not had much time for love myself,” he said simply. “But perhaps it will happen for me soon enough. Peace brings new beginnings, I suppose. Are you sure you wish for this to be your fresh start?”

“I’m certain I wish for Hogsmeade to be free.”

“Ah! Noble.”

“Perhaps.” Harry grinned, glanced askance at the prying stranger. “Who are you, anyway?” 

The stranger winked and disappeared.

And Harry was not surprised to see him one day later, garbed in costly vestment at the end of the runner. Their faces were kept inexpressive, as was customary of their culture, but Harry let the amusement glint in his own green eyes as the black-stone ring was sworn to his left finger. To think this man, so handsome and charming, was the son of the dark, distorted Lord of yore seemed ridiculous—but that was life, he supposed as he pressed his pin-pricked finger into the parchment contract. Mellifluous choir songs of great rejoice led them to their thestral-drawn carriage. Tom, the Heir, bowed as Harry mounted the plush red-cushion interior and followed behind with a wave to the crowd.

It was an odd thing at first. Marriage between two strangers, forged for alliance and not for love, did not seem a happy start to happily-ever-after. The first night, they slept in separate rooms. The second, they tolerated a bed, each man rolled over at either corner. The third, they stayed up too late into the night to realize the sun had long crept over the horizon, laughing in the regal courtyard and exchanging spells like adolescents. By the time the fourth night came, the men, both so tired, fell onto the bed in a tangled mess. The fifth night was born of passion. Their clothes fell to the stone like water down the drain as two bodies, perspiry and red, met and slapped and joined in union.

Sometime near the seventh night, as the two lounged in their peignoirs, Harry twisted his ring between two fingers, considering its design.

“What does this mean, here?” he asked. “This triangle with the line?”

“An old family heirloom, as it were,” Tom explained. “It represents the Bard’s hallows.”

“Family heirloom, eh?” Harry sunk the ring back to the base of his finger. “Speaking of, when am I to meet…?”

“My father?” Tom suggested, smirking. “Perhaps never. We don’t get on. Our personalities are, well...” He paused to laugh. “Let’s just say, they’re much too similar.” 

“What’s so funny?” Harry inquired, rubbing at the roughly cut black stone.

“Nothing at all,” said Tom, flattening onto the mattress, propping his head with one hand. “There’s no need to meet my father. He told me his only request to you is to protect this ring,” he nodded his head at it, “as if my life depended on it.”

“And does it?” Harry asked jokingly.

Tom’s full lips split into an even smile. “Perhaps. But that, my love, is a secret.”

Harry laughed and thought nothing more of the comment. 

His days went on like this, simple and peaceful and completely unknowing.

**Author's Note:**

> I thought ending 2017 with a story about "ignorance is bliss" seemed somewhat fitting. I've never done an arranged marriage plot, but I hope you enjoy it, Sang_argente. <3


End file.
